Vison of Life...It speaks about my views towards what's happening around us, though many of the things represents Pune, a becoming Metro in Maharashtra,India yet most of us live in similar city life. In city day to day life all we face is problems around us; from traffic to water to slums to power supply & many more, but who has solutions? That's why the name
Vison of Life!
Sanjay Deshpande

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Visitors With Wings!

“Birds are a
miracle because they prove to us there is a finer, simpler state of being which
we may strive to attain”… Douglas Coupland

Douglas
Coupland is a Canadian novelist and artist. His fiction is complemented by
recognized works in design and visual art arising from his early formal
training.And though Douglas is a fiction writer in his
above quote there is no fiction but a plain simple observation of an artist as simplicity
is the base of any art & what better form can be there than birds when it’s
an art! In a way every specie on the earth is creation of the artist whom we
may call God, Christ or Allah yet birds are ahead in line when it comes to looks
& beauty! Sure most of the bird watchers would agree with me! Off late bird
watching is a recent buzz on social media & say fashion, many wont like the
term fashion but that’s what I feel when I read or see the posts on FB or go
through the images on whats-app, usually forward. Then there is a class which
feels they are bird lovers as they also forward posts about keep a bowl on your
terrace its summer types, though how many of them does that by themselves is a
question no one answers. But always forwards, rarely I have come across a post
saying he or she has done something for the birds at their homes or offices!
Agreed there are many who take efforts at their end but numbers of such people
is very less in compare to those who keeps on sharing or forwarding the posts
about birds, especially in city area!

In rural or villages or even in
towns, there are still lots of open spaces, farms & fields along with trees
for the birds’ survival; it’s in cities like Pune the problem is grave. As
buildings are replacing trees & green cover is getting reduced fast along
with the food avenues available for the birds. On such background every single
effort is welcome & in such vein we have tried something not so unique but
different in the homes we build. We give a water bowl along with grain bowl
& a bird nest in the attached terrace of every flat. All the flat holder
has to do is keeping the bowls full with water & grains as well keep some
dry grass in the nest. The nest is specially designed keeping in mind size of
birds which can use it i.e. bulbul or sparrow & with small feeders attached
to it. We advise flat holders to have some greenery around the nest as it makes
the birds a bit comfortable is what my own experience. Many people initially
have complained about the nests are not being used by the birds but the reason
is there should be less human moment in the terrace, agreed you can’t stop
using the terrace but try to make less noise & unnecessary use or poking continuously
in the nest so the birds can have their privacy. Also as the building is new it
takes time for the birds to get used to its surrounding as well it depends a
lot on what kind of trees are existing around & has been planted newly. But
over the period of time most flat holders have experienced moment of birds in
their terrace & shared their experiences with me; I think that’s the best
thing I could do for my clients as well for the birds!

To start with I have got a
small attached terrace of hardly 60sft to my office room, where I tried the
nests as well water bowl. I am fortunate to have my building adjoin to a small
stream with a bit of vegetation around & my first floor terrace overlooks
an open space where I have planted trees like mango, jack fruit & a huge
rain tree shadows most of the surrounding. There were birds like bulbul, maina,
sparrows & yes robin too around the building. When I planted flowering
plants as well creepers around the railing of my terrace & then kept water
/grain trees & hung two nests immediately birds started coming in,
especially in summer noon. To my surprise it’s not just above mentioned birds
but grey pigeons, scaled muniys, white eye & koyals also become regular
visitors along with squirrels. The only disturbance is domestic pigeons &
crows as they are big in size & aggressive making other birds shoo off. But
soon I learned that there is a fixed pattern of my visitors with wings, as they
knew what time pigeons & crows comes at water & avoids those timings.
To watch these visitors of mine has become a relaxing hobby for me as it makes
me sitting at water hole in forest of my own! It teaches me many things that
because of scarcity of grass around birds like sparrows have difficulty in
making the bed in the nest so I myself put some paper grass along with dry
leafs & some cotton in the nest & it does helped. One more observation
was if the nest is too low at height then the birds don’t occupy it as they
feel unsafe, so it must be hang at some 6’ to 7’ height & better if it’s
surrounded by creepers.

Another observation is birds like robin or bulbul don’t eat
grains much instead they make their own kills for food & it includes small
insects, even lizard infants as well worms. And this is very important aspect
as if the particular food is not around then these birds won’t be able to make
your terrace as their home. And to make insects, worms & lizards survive
one has to have open spaces, exposed soil cover & lots of vegetation
around, an important aspect to remember for all the architects as well
developers while we make our projects!

After all the setup was in
place to my happiness both the nests were soon occupied by sparrows. Over the
period I used watch sparrows modifying the nests interior with their limited
resources & once the breeding period is over the nest used to be empty.
Suddenly one day I say a robin male inspecting one of the nests the bigger one.
I was curious as I used to think that birds especially smaller birds doesn’t encroach
on other birds’ nests, also they don’t use once occupied nests by other birds.
Then the female robin came & that day both of them keep visiting the nest
many times. Later slowly they added some real grass as well leafs in the nest
& then in next few days the robin couple took possession of the nest totally.
As I guessed female robin was pregnant & soon she seldom used to leave the
nest & the male all day long keeps collection food & drop it at the
mouth of the nest & I could see female eating from the parceled food. Then
it become my best time pass to listen various sounds the robin couple used to
communicate with each other & guess their next move. Soon the robin female
laid eggs which again I guessed as she started moving out at least for a while.
Once the chicks are out of the eggs, the robin couple become very busy,
ferrying to & fro & collecting more food which surely is a problem in
city. They didn’t touched the grain bowl even once & I could see from the
type of prey base right from small lizards to cockroaches to worms to few very
uncommon insects which I didn’t even knew exists around!

The pattern of their food
carrying was also very peculiar, first the male or female whoever is carrying
the food used to sit on railing of terrace & then from there after checking
the surrounding used to flew & sit on my window grill & from there go
to the nest! I think its forest habits as not to lead any predators directly to
the nest where chick are there & it was a fun to watch them doing so. Then
whenever any crow or pigeon visits the water bowl the robin couple used to call
very loudly & shoo away crow or pigeon with their full force. One morning I
hear robin couples calling very strong & continuous so curiously I went to
see what has happened; I saw one of the chick fall down in a planter below the
nest & was calling from there & both robins were helplessly jumping
around. I asked my peon to lift the chic wrapped in towel & keep it again
in nest; fortunately the chick wasn’t injured. In my childhood I have believed that
if you touch a bird chick then other birds won’t take him back in flock or
nest. I saw my myth vanishing as the robin couple happily accepted the chick
back in nest & immediately started feeding it! Now the chicks have grown up
& I can see that in some days they will be on their own!

About the entire episode one
may laugh at as what’s big deal in it & have I don’t got any important work
to do than to watch a robin couple going through their routine! But friends its
such small things happening around which makes life more interesting as
watching the robins I learned so many things about birds behavior! As well I am happy that
in the city where on one side even sighting of sparrows is getting rare I am
lucky to witness lifecycle of a bird like robin. I could give them space to
grow & more than that privacy too; that’s what makes my buildings complete!
I feel success as a developer is not the concrete walls we build, human
families occupying those walls & the money we make by constructing our
buildings but if we can build an environment where every specie, like the robin
has its space & all of them grow together, that is what I call real success
of being a developer!

In our fast moving life we have forgotten the simplicity
which Douglas has mentioned in the quote. We have learned to fly high &
fast but have lost the joy of flying & look around the sky& the greens.
All we know is just to fly higher & faster but in the process we left the
charm of flying on ground itself, then what’s difference between the airplane
which is just a machine & us, the so called humans! It’s only
when we create & conserve spaces for robins around then that realization of
what we have lost comes back & then we start actually living our life! As
being able to make out few minutes to watch a robin feed its chic, you won’t understand
the pleasure unless you do it by yourself!

All I will say to conclude is, thanks a lot robins, you
have made my life a shade more wonderful by being my guest!

Have
clicked various moments of robin episode & you can watch them at link below…

2 comments:

Very interesting blog. I am staying in NCL colony Pashan and got several opportunities to watch different birds and their activities. My son is at Huntsville, USA. In 2014 I stayed there for 40 days. In those 40 days I observed a complete life cycle of bird family. In mid April a pair of birds built a nest in the balcony. (Unfortunately I do not know the name of this bird species). It was made of mud, grass etc. At the end of April the female laid her eggs. She was incubating these eggs while the male made frequent visits to this nest to feed her. In first week of May the baby birds came out of the eggs and started chirping continuously, which disturbed the atmosphere but I enjoyed to watch their growth everyday. In the last week of May the babies were learning to fly and in a week's time, they were independent and flew away. The nest was empty as the parents also left the nest. Now it was my time also to come back to India. That time my son might be undergoing "empty nest syndrome"